ASM Ch 9

Her face grew hot. She wondered if she had shown him everything at this point, but it felt like he had dug deeper and discovered something below that.

She bit the inside of her mouth and held her breath to avoid being caught. All she could think about was how to get out of here quickly. Eunwoo passed by without even responding to Cha Taehyuk. He didn’t seem to want an answer either seeing as how he just stared blankly at Eunwoo as she walked away.

Like a cat playing with a mouse, Cha Taehyuk seemed calm and collected while she was the only one who was always on edge. It left a bitter taste in her mouth, but even if she fought back, nothing would change. It would be best to just avoid him.

She had difficulty moving her stiff legs. Eunwoo began to stagger.

“Ugh.”

Pain shot up from her twisted ankle. She had never hated wearing high heels more than she did right now.

Eunwoo tried to take a few steps forward with determination because it was more embarrassing to show weakness, but the pain was still too much to endure.

Damn these heels. She pulled on the thin strap to take off the heel, but the buckle wouldn’t budge. While she was struggling with the shoes, Cha Taehyuk slowly walked over.

“You should be careful.”

Cha Taehyuk stopped in front of her and gave her a curt rebuke. He looked down at her with one hand in his pocket, like someone observing a beautiful scenery.

Son of a bitch. She inwardly cursed at Cha Taehyuk and almost ripped off the strap, finally managing to get the shoe off. She tried to throw her other shoe off and get out of here quickly, but a large hand snatched her heel.

And then her body was lifted. She was startled and flailed her legs, but the arms supporting her back and knees did not waver.

“There is no need for this.”

Ignoring her protests, Cha Taehyuk continued to walk

“I can walk by myself.”

She tried again, but again he ignored her. He strode out of the garage with long strides and didn’t let her go until they were inside the house.

A deep fatigue came over her. Not that long ago, he had always taunted and shaken her, but now he was forcing her to accept help she didn’t want. All she wanted was to get away from him as soon as possible. But even that was impossible.

Perhaps if she had been a little more open-minded, a little less twisted, she might have accepted the favor as a favor, even if it came from someone who had always looked down on her.

However, Seo Eunwoo was neither broad-minded nor open-hearted.

“The perfume. You said it smells disgusting because it’s mixed in with your pheromones. I can’t smell pheromones so I’m fine with it, but I have to be considerate of you, Executive Director.”

Eunwoo smiled kindly, as if she really wanted to be considerate of him.

But she knew that Cha Taehyuk wasn’t so dull as to miss the meaning behind her remark. The hidden meaning was obvious. It wasn’t her perfume that was disgusting. It was his pheromones.

As expected, Cha Taehyuk let out a small laugh. He stopped abruptly and put her down in the hallway. It was the passage leading to the living room on the first floor and the stairs to the second floor. As Cha Taehyuk’s gaze fell on her head, Eunwoo was overcome with the urge to quickly disappear to the second floor.

“Yeah, it’s disgusting.”

But she couldn’t move at all because Cha Taehyuk’s hand was firmly holding her chin. The heat began to spread.

“And it turns me on.”

“……”

“I’m turned on by my own pheromones. Of course it disgusts me, don’t you think?”

“What are you—.”

Before she could finish her words, her voice was swallowed by his kiss. She gasped in surprise, and a hot lump of flesh slid in between her half-open lips. His tongue, which had been gently gliding along the roof of her mouth to the delicate flesh inside her cheek, soon tangled with her tongue. The kiss was so frantic that it took her breath away. Her mind gradually became hazy.

“Ugh…”

She tried to push him away by hitting his firm chest, but it was no use. Cha Taehyuk easily subdued both of her hands and pushed her against the wall as if he found her squirming annoying.

Unlike the frantic kiss, the hands that unbuttoned her blouse were incredibly leisurely. The feeling of the fabric slowly falling away sent goosebumps up her skin. His hands pushed up her bra and grabbed her breasts, squeezing them. At the same time, her loose slacks were also unbuttoned. As Eunwoo shuddered, a firm thigh came between her legs and pressed her against the wall. Her body trembled again. When something stiff touched the inside of her thigh, a surge of fear caused her throat to close up.

The nightmare of his rut was still vivid in her mind. The unfamiliar pleasure that bordered on pain. The way her body felt like it didn’t belong to her. The pain that lingered like a bitter aftertaste even after a long time had passed.

In the end, Eunwoo ended up weeping softly.

“S-Stop.”

She couldn’t figure out where it all went wrong.

Clearly, Cha Taehyuk hated her so much. She was pathetic, greedy, and had no self-esteem but was full of pride. A disgusting woman. He didn’t hesitate to remind her of that every time they met.

Therefore, she thought he wouldn’t want to associate with her.

She thought that night was also something he did on impulse, caught up in his rut.

Or maybe the rut hadn’t been resolved yet.

It seemed like that was the only reason why he was doing this now.

Eunwoo tried to continue speaking, even as her body trembled due to her pounding heart.

“Heo Mina-ssi will be here s-soon…”

A chuckle flowed out from deep inside his chest. And his hand gripped her chin again. Cha Taehyuk rubbed her swollen lips with his thumb and looked down at her with indifferent eyes.

“The concubine will come soon, so leave the main wife alone?”

It was a shallow remark, but Eunwoo couldn’t help but nod her head at the slight glimmer of hope.

It didn’t matter if Cha Taehyuk found it suspicious.

A Beta woman who didn’t know her place and had fallen in love with him, even to the point of marrying him. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t playing that role.

Because she could always put on that act later.

For now, all she felt was a deep need to get out of this situation.

But as if mocking her, Cha Taehyuk unhooked her bra that was pushed halfway up her chest. Then, the sound of a buckle being released rang in the air.

“Tomorrow is tomorrow, and today is today.”

“……”

“Starting tomorrow, I’ll be passing all the responsibilities onto my concubine, so shouldn’t you be of some use today?”

Cha Taehyuk laughed as he pushed off her underwear and thrust into her body.

* * *

Eunwoo collapsed from exhaustion some time later. As he looked down at her sleeping face, he thought of the cigarettes he would chainsmoke whenever he drank strong liquor.

He began to feel suffocated and the back of his neck began to feel tight as soon as he arrived at the house. Silence had settled, and the occasional rustling noises coming from the second floor were gone.

And that, strangely enough, was even more annoying. Since Eunwoo had nowhere else to go, she was probably at his parents’ house to pick a concubine with her own hands, just like she said she would yesterday.

She was an incomprehensible woman. She said she fell in love at first sight and pushed for marriage, but she actively took steps to help her husband set up two households.

Perhaps he went to his parents’ house as soon as he was finished with work because he was curious about what it would look like.

He arrived at the interview a bit late, and Seo Eunwoo, who had been avoiding eye contact out of pure discomfort, couldn’t take her eyes off of the final interviewee who came in. The way she greedily stared at the dimples that appeared every time the interviewee smiled, the way she smelled of perfume as if she had poured it all over her to mask the faint scent of pheromones that were left behind, the way she struggled not to look at him, it was all vulgar.

And the vulgarity reached its peak when she smiled brightly and told Heo Mina that it seemed like they would get along well.

He was so filled with rage.

He could not shake off the dirty feeling that it was he, not Seo Eunwoo, who was being humiliated every time. She was invading and manipulating his life without permission and smiling comfortably even when she should have been the one who was humiliated.

Taehyuk finally took out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the nightstand. Click, he lit the cigarette and took a slow drag. Eunwoo frowned in her sleep and turned around. Cha Taehyuk instinctively reached out and pulled her back. Her soft body was wrapped in his arm. He watched her face crumple slightly every time he exhaled smoke, and he slowly continued to smoke his cigarette.

He knew it was childish. That he could only feel better if he did something Seo Eunwoo hated. Whether it was sex or smoking.

But he had no intention of stopping. After all, it was Seo Eunwoo who had messed with him first. This was just one more thing she had to deal with.

* * *

A few weeks later, on the day Heo Mina was scheduled to move in, Eunwoo went out to pick her up ten minutes before the scheduled time.

The servants who were preparing the annex glanced at Eunwoo with strange eyes as she stood in front of the gate. But Eunwoo held her head up high and kept her place.

It didn’t matter if people called her a frivolous bitch behind her back.

If she came out here so early and didn’t welcome Heo Mina properly, it was clear that the others would gossip about her and claim she was blinded by jealousy and had come here to start a fight.

It would be better to be called a frivolous bitch.

A little while later, a black sedan stopped in front of the gate. Eunwoo waited for Heo Mina to get out of the back seat and greeted her.

“Did you have any trouble getting here?”

While the driver was unloading the luggage, Heo Mina drew closer and stopped in front of her.

“Not at all. Thanks to you, I was able to find it without any issues.”

Mina smiled gently and ran her manicured hand through her long hair. The thick locks swayed like waves and fell around her shoulders.

“I didn’t know you’d come out to greet me like this, but I’m glad to be welcomed.”

Does that mean you thought you wouldn’t be welcome?

The way she smiled with her eyes slightly closed seemed natural, as if she were truly happy, but perhaps because Eunwoo was particularly sensitive today, her words sounded like a subtle dig.